The other night I couldn't sleep. Over the Christmas break, a friend had mentioned a competition from a while back to redesign Monopoly. The idea stuck in my head. What an interesting challenge: “How do you redesign Monopoly as simply as possible while keeping the core of the game intact?”
I tossed and turned over the question for hours. My, admittedly poor, repayment for insomnia was several ideas that might actually work. I thought I'd share them.
Before going into detail, I should clarify that I actually like Monopoly a lot. I know, that puts me in a minority. Most people find it either too long or too luck-based or both. I admit that those issues are there, but I love it anyway. The history behind the game is fascinating, both the story of its creation and the uniqueness of its design for the time. The core system of buying property, trading it and profiting from it is really fun and exciting. I have a ton of fond memories of hardball negotiations and impossible comebacks, not to mention the arguments over house rules that preceded every game with my friends. Those discussions helped kindle my interest in game design. I at least have to respect Monopoly for that. It's just barely enough to compensate for the tedium that suffuses most of the game.
Before redesigning Monopoly it's important to understand what works about the game and what doesn't. As mentioned, what works for me most is the wheeling and dealing. I like having to valuate properties, sort out trades and hope I get the better end of the deal. I especially love making money off my opponents when they land on my spaces. (I promise, I'm not really as soulless as that sounds.) And I like the tension that the dice add to those moments.
What I hate about Monopoly is being in last place and feeling like I have no way to compete; or conversely, having a commanding lead and knowing that I need to go through the motions for another hour before the deed is done. I hate having almost no control over the outcome of my turn. Most of all, I hate that trading properties, my favourite part of the game, happens in a quick flash and then is done forever. To that end, my modifications need to change the end-game condition to make the game shorter and more fair; give players more control over the outcome of turns while maintaining a degree of uncertainty; and give players reasons to trade properties all throughout the game, not just in the middle of it.
With that, I offer Bertonopoly: my set of rule modifications that attempt to improve on and emphasize the core of what makes Monopoly interesting in the first place. I limited myself to use only the components that come in the box (the one I grew up with anyway – I'm not sure if they've added weird stuff in the intervening years). If I don't say a rule has changed, assume that it hasn't.
Bertonopoly
